I'll just put this out here: Infantry are just way too squishy in steel division. There are several reasons for this. First, it's just too easy to destroy them. It's not that usual for a single HE round to wipe out an entire squad, which while possible should be rare. There are a lot of instances in WW2 of infantry being bombed/shelled the crap out of, only to come out after the barrage has been lifted fighting like hell. I believe that part of this is that even in terrain that looks like there's no cover at all, this is rarely the case. Frequently there's a boulder, defilade, or something similar even on plains that when a squad is caught out in the open would give it the ability to not be totally exposed. There's also the issue that in game, you can't have any sort of fortifications. No foxholes, pillboxes or strongpoints. This seriously limits the ability of infantry to shield itself from attack. Also, a major issue is that in steel division, suppression and morale are the same thing, which shouldn't be the case. They should be related, but not identical. A infantry squad could be pinned but nowhere close to breaking, which isn't what you see in game. Therefore all you need to do to kill a squad is toss enough bullets at it so that it runs away, getting mowed down in the process, which is also quite unrealistic. Related is that cover and concealment are the same thing, which also is limiting for infantry. A squad IRL could potentially crawl through a cornfield and not be seen at all until right on top of the enemy, even though obviously corn won't stop any fire at all. Last armored vehicles see infantry too well. It's very hard to see nearly anything not vehicle sized while buttoned up, which is why the official US army tactics manual says if assaulted by armor, shoot at the vision ports to force them to button up and limit what they see. This is why having infantry work with tanks was important, as even infantry without piat/bazookas/panzerfaust would be able to destroy tanks simply by assaulting them with grenades/Molotov cocktails. It's very easy to hide from a tank as a infantry soldier in a bush, even one literally right next to the enemy tank. You don't see this in game either.

The result is currently with steel division that it's really armored steel division, with the tank or armor being the best solution in nearly all cases, other than perhaps fighting in cities or towns - and then only because the infantry might have AT weapons that become effective in those close quarters. What I'm hoping is that Eugen with steel division II looks into how infantry are represented in their game instead of just porting over '44 mechanics and then adding the strat layer. Otherwise while steel division II should be a big advance with the additions that they've already revealed, a large portion of the game will still seem gamey and unrealistic.